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Oct 8, 2014

Wednesday, October 8, 2014 Jeff Stillman

17A. Rooftop energy generators : SOLAR PANELS. If there's one part of the country where it should be a no-brainer installing these it's where I live, Southern California.

27A. Removable denture : PARTIAL PLATE. You probably don't want to go and Google the images of one of these.

43A. Apollo 11 achievement : LUNAR LANDING. This was the first time that BBC Television broadcast live at night in the UK, so huge excitement for us kids. It was about 4AM GMT that Neil Armstrong stepped down the ladder.

58A. Eidetic memory : TOTAL RECALL. A phrase-learning moment for me. Eidetic: "relating to or denoting mental images having unusual vividness and detail, as if actually visible.". I'd resolve to use it in a sentence today but that's probably going to be a bit of a stretch.

35D. 17-, 27-, 43- and 58-Across begin with types of them : ECLIPSES

Oh wait - wrong kinds of Eclipse!

There, that's better.

Morning all - Steve here, with the pleasure of introducing Jeff's own "Game of Shadows". It took me a little longer than usual - I had to leave the NW corner alone and go back to it at the end. The "1919" reference at 1A had me thinking of the World Series scandal for some reason and it took every cross to stop me trying to shoehorn (!) "Shoeless Joe" in there somehow. Eventually sanity prevailed, but it wasn't an eidetic moment.

Let's see what else we've got.

Across:

1. Subject of a historic 1919 sports deal, with "The" : BABE. The beginning of "The Curse" for the Red Sox.

5. Type of large TV : PLASMA. It's funny how quickly "hot" technology is superseded these days. Panasonic are closing their last plasma TV production facility this year.

40. Surrounding glow : AURA. The corona around a full solar eclipse could be described as an aura.

41. Peter or Paul : SAINT

46. Latin clarifier : ID EST. i.e. an additional explanation.

47. Fearful squeal : EEK

48. Dr.'s group : A.M.A. American Medical Association.

51. Medium rare : PINK. Food! You order a steak medium-rare, you order your lamb pink. Why? Because! If you're in Marseille you'd call it "à point". If you want to get thrown out of the restaurant and chased down the street by the chef brandishing a sharp knife, you'd order it well-done ("bien cuit") and then ask for ketchup.

52. Farrier's file : RASP

55. Restrict : LIMIT

57. Witness : SEE

60. Kin of -trix : ESS. I was trying to think of how to explain this to a family audience and decided I can't. So I'm left with "Dominatrix Goddess" which I think sums it up rather nicely.

61. Geometric figure with equal angles : ISOGON. I think I learned this today. I don't think I ever knew there was a word to describe a regular polygon beyond an equilateral triangle.

62. Sicilian rumbler : ETNA

63. AL and MO : STS. I've visited the fine states of both Missouri and Alabama.

64. Tropical fruit : PAPAYA. Food! I like Jeff's puzzles.

65. Peters out : DIES

Down:

1. Opera villain, often : BASSO. If he's deeply villainous, is he a basso profondo?

2. Skirt : AVOID

3. Poppycock : BILGE

4. Dutch export : EDAM. And a mighty fine export it is.

5. Mushy food : PAP. Aaaw, burst my Food! bubble. I put POI first.

6. Absorbed, as lessons : LEARNT. I think this is much more elegant than LEARNED, in a similar way that I prefer DREAMT to DREAMED.

7. Ill-fated Boleyn : ANNE

8. Ooze : SEEP

9. "Bloom County" reporter : MILO

10. They often adorn city buses : ADS

11. Fraud : CHARLATAN. Great word.

12. Consequential : RESULTANT

13. Prepares for printing : TYPESETS. Does anyone actually typeset any more with the disappearance of hot metal, or is the process of computer-based layout design still called typesetting?

18. Morocco's capital : RABAT. A short ocean voyage through the Straits of Gibraltar and a scenic cruise off the south-east coast of Spain and before you know it you'll be waving at Les Marseillaises eating bouillabaisse.

22. __ Aviv : TEL. At the opposite end of the Mediterranean from Marseille.

25. Filled with rage : IREFUL. Hmmm. Not convinced about this one.

26. Relaxing getaway : SPA

27. Get too personal : PRY

28. Peruvian of yore : INCAN

29. Big shot in the sky : ACE. A fighter ace, like this one:

30. Glasgow gal : LASSIE

31. Least fair, in a way : CLOUDIEST. Weather-related.

32. State of seclusion : ALONENESS. Had ANONYMITY first, which fit with the A**N* that was already there.

I was hoping to see the lunar eclipse this morning, but we've got rain clouds obscuring everything around here....

Mostly smooth solve today. Before I got the theme, I couldn't get IREFUL to save my life. Once I got the theme, however, I quickly filled in PARTIAL PLATE and LUNAR LANDING which gave me enough letters to guess at IREFUL.

Did not know that MILNE wrote that particular piece, but with enough perps (basically MI_NE) I was able to make an educated guess.

I was thinking "Big shot in the sky" was referring to God, so I was a little confused when the perps gave me ACE. Then I had my V8 moment.

Is LEARNT standard AMerican English? I always thought it was slang or perhaps archaic or even the way they say it in England.

Coincidence that Rich scheduled this one on the morning of a lunar eclipse? I think not. Steve, I enjoyed you foodie take on it, but it did get a little soupy. With your French angle and the LUNAR LANDING, you could have mentioned that the solar radiation has turned the American flags on the moon pure white. The fear is that when ET lands on the moon he'll think it was the French who were there first.

ELLY May Clampett was the hottest hottie on TV until Daisy Duke showed up.

Steve, you must not be a fan of Criminal Minds. You'd know that Dr. Spenser Reid has an eidetic memory, and you'd even know how to mispronounce it with four syllables.

Happy, Happy Birthday, Jayce! I always get a kick out of your observations, and often learn something from your comments. Thank you for being a pillar of this little community!¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫¸¸¸.•*¨*♫♥♫

Gee, do you think it was a coincidence that Rich scheduled this puzzle on the day of the LUNAR eclipse? ;-)

I almost missed the theme reveal, but had to check perps for PINK. It just didn't occur to me that that is another name for medium rare. I always believed that medium rare has a warm red center, and a pink center denotes a steak that is cooked "medium."

Of course, 1A was all perps for me. Which is really stupid, because The BABE is such an icon of sports. Huge V8 moment when it filled in. Other than that, it was pretty much smooth sailing.

Fun write-up, Steve. (Food!) And I cracked up at your ICED comment. Hopefully, Tin will let that one slide...

I completely missed the fact there was an eclipse last night - my Uber driver told me when he picked me up this morning to go to the airport - the moon was beautiful, low and full - just not eclipsed any more.

@Avg Joe - funny you should say that, I had a bowl of cioppino for lunch a week ago at La Boulangerie on Mission in downtown San Francisco.

I did have to wait for perps to get BABE, and my one erasure was changing RESULTING to RESULTANT. I have a nephew called ARA, who I'm sure wasn't named after the constellation.

I prefer my beef PINK but lamb must be bien cuit. I thought D-O's French joke rather mean. The French resistance were very heroic during WWII. As is frequent, the general population did not necessarily all think the same way as their government.

This was one of the most difficult puzzles for a Wednesday that I can recall. It was a struggle from the start. Even though I knew it was wrong I had Carsill Plate instead of PARTIAL. Had Cry for PRY, Learns for LEARNT, & Lce for ACE. At that point my wee brain was done in, so I accepted a "Did it wrong" for today"

Nothing came easy today, every section was a slow go, but eventually I figured it out. This puzzle was fun because of the challenge, which I prefer over a speed run just filling in spaces without any thought.

I enjoyed this offering which has lot of fresh, long fill. Didn't care for ireful or aloneness but, overall, fun and just enough of a challenge.

Thanks, Jeff, and thanks, Steve, for the colorful and image-provoking expo. I can just see that mad-man chef, toque askew, waving his razor-sharp, gleaming knife, chasing the "well-done, ketchup-loving" culprit down the cobblestone streets of Marseille. Mon Dieu!

Happy Birthday, Jace, hope it's a day of fun and celebration. Lovely pictures of you and your wife.

Terrific Wednesday puzzle, Jeff--many thanks! Much to love in it, though (as an English professor) I frowned a little at IREFUL and ALONENESS (my spell check underlines that one as unacceptable). But loved being reminded of ELLY and her delightful hillbilly family. And Steve, thanks for giving me a better fix on ACE with Snoopy.

Coming home from grocery shopping and dinner last evening we noticed a spectacular moon in the southern California sky--but had no idea there would be a LUNAR ECLIPSE.

Que maravilla! I loved this puzzle by Jeff Stillman and was on his wave length almost immediately though had to skip over to PLASMA before the BABE occurred to me.

And how nice to have Virgil's epic instead of Homer's. Great to SEE CHARLATAN there and hand up for first filling RESULTING and ANONIMITY. RESULTANT filled SAINT for me. ISOGON was a new one.

Steve, thank you, not only for your witty style but for using "US kids" correctly. I'm really tired of "between we" or "between you and I". I do believe we are going backwards in this country. Ok, end of rant.

Absence of MaliceWhen referring to the Paul Newman character (Gallagher) ...Sarah Wylie: "I need to know how to describe your relationship with Gallagher. Mac said to quote you directly. You can say whatever you want."Megan Carter: "Just... say we were involved."Sarah Wylie:>"That's true, isn't it?"Megan Carter: "No. But it's accurate.

Also, I can't hear Air Ace without thinking about Douglas Bader. He lost both legs, & yet with prostheses he could fly a plane better than most pilots. (Note, you steer a planes rudder with your feet!) When he did get shot down over Germany, his prosthesis got stuck in the rudder pedal & he had to bail out without it. Due to his missing legs he spent most of his time as a prisoner of war in a hospital. The Germans thought so highly of his accomplishments that they allowed a single spitfire to fly over Germany and drop a replacement prosthetic leg so he could get around. He promptly put on the missing leg, tied some bedsheets together & climbed out the hospital window to escape. (Boy, were the Germans mad!)

2310Hello everybody. Thank you for the birthday wishes. You all are such a bunch of loverly folks, and I enjoy reading each and every one of your posts.Steve, you do such good blog! I know you will enjoy Santa Ynez.Fun pozzle today, with a fun and timely theme. Usually I can't figure out the reveal on themes like this (what do the first (or last) words all have in common?) but this time it was not at all eclipsed. Lots of 3-letter entries today, but for some reason I didn't find them annoying.FermatPrime and Lemonade, we stopped watching Castle a couple of years ago. I also notice Extant, which LW and I both felt iffy about right off the bat, seems to be kaput. We both like Madam Secretary and hope it doesn't go too far astray. Our perennial favorite is still NCIS, and its New Orleans spinoff seems okay so far, too.Jeez, more time spent on discussing TV shows than the puzzle.LW and I are going out for dinner tonight at a semi-upscale place. I am craving rack of lamb; she's not telling me what she's craving.C.C., you must take notes; you remember so much!Bill G, I'll resume trying your math puzzles.Best wishes to you all.

Re: Group Captain Douglas Bader, RAF, I read the biographic book on him, by Paul Brickhill, 'Reach for the Sky', in 1962, and I was impressed. That he could do all that with 2 artificial legs was beyond ( my) belief.

Despite your story, Bader did not finally escape, in his hospital breakout, and he ended the war in a German POW hospital, rescued by the US Army.

For fairness' sake, you should also see the old movie 'The one that got away',(1957)(The Rank Organisation) about a WWII German flying ace, ObLt Franz von Werra, a Luftwaffe pilot, who did actually get away and escape, on his third attempt, by crossing the frozen Lake Erie (?), from a Canadian POW camp, to the (then -) 'neutral' USA in 1940.

Although, it is sometimes difficult for us to rationalize, we should try hard not to taint brave and honorable soldiers by the politics of the wars they fought in. Just a passing thought.

I don't know if, or how ,it was determined the pitchers you listed threw the ball 100 mph, but I am sure if they did it was a rarity, not consistent. Joe Wood & Mr Johnson are the least likely yo have achieved the century mark. The ball they used was like a hardened nerf ball.

The others MAY have ben clocked at 100 mph, but they sure did not record it regularly, like today's pitchers.

And as far as the Babe, he hit everything pitched to him, in spite of his activities the night before. That would still apply in 2014!

Today's puzzle was crunchy for me, but I made it through. Thanks Steve for helping me understand the wags.

My Dad was a TYPESETTER until the age of 50+. I remember his angst as his job changed to the computer.He said they threw 75+ printer's boxes (drawers) into the fire. He rescued 2 printer's boxes for me and I also have metal type and old advertising blocks.

War, like many human endeavors, often brings out the best and the worst in us.

... and yet, most scientists, technocrats, economists, medical doctors etc., all agree that the progress in all sciences, technology and advances in every field that are achieved during war - would NEVER have been achieved in peace... or in so short a time.

Fun easier than normal Wednesday for me except for the LA TIMES site. Not wanting to pay $5 again for a print out, I started working online. When I got to HEY, it would only let me TYPE Ts into the grid. I guess that's apropos considering my avatar.

Only write over today was TaPES-off. I read 13d as "painting." Perps to the rescue!

Theme helped my finally get PARTIAL PLATE and fix 13d.

I liked the theme, but there where some words... WEES. Thanks for the puzzle Jeff. Steve - awesome as always.

Fav of course was the reveal. It ECLIPSES everything.

I also LEARNT PAPAYA has a Y, not an I.

Steak? - Medium well please. I want to make sure it's dead.

Lucina - between we. I agree, is grating to hear.

CED - Great Links! Deep Thinker - I read Higher Calling two(?) years ago. It will keep you on the edge of your seat.